Misr–Hayastan Միսր-Հայաստան  ·  مصر-هاياستان

For over a couple of millennia at least, Armenians have been woven into the very fabric of Egyptian life — not as visitors, but as builders, rulers, artists, and citizens. They named streets, founded schools, rolled cigarettes, staged operas, and governed empires. Their story is Egypt's story.

Misr-Hayastan is the first and only living archive of that shared civilization. Here we collect and document the figures, institutions, neighborhoods, industries, and moments that defined one of history's most remarkable cross-cultural partnerships, spanning from the ancient era to the present day.

A lot of books and research articles mention both civilizations' relations, but it's very hard to access this knowledge for the mainstream audience, making what Egyptians and Armenians know about each other very limited — despite having a lot in common, and sometimes it becomes unbelievable how much we share together.

We are developing this wiki and maintaining it to preserve these history fragments into a full story.

Misr and Hayastan are the endonyms of Egypt and Armenia. We chose the name of the wiki to be the concatenation of both endonyms to represent that we are looking at each other not with the eyes of foreigners, but as brothers and sisters — honoring our shared history, and keeping it for the next generation to know it and possibly contribute to it.

The Armenian community of Egypt transformed the country in ways that are rarely taught and even less often celebrated, and Egypt has a very deep presence in Armenian culture, from folklore to modern music and movies.

Yet most Egyptians and Armenians have never connected the dots — because most of the available content about Armenians in Egypt exists either in Arabic or in lengthy research papers, and most of what's available about Egypt in Armenia is available only in Armenian, making it almost impossible for both nations to access their shared heritage and influence.

Without a deliberate effort to document and maintain a record of all of this information, the record disappears with the last generation who lived it.

We built this wiki because that cannot happen. Our shared history deserves shared memory. Because the story of Armenians in Egypt is too rich, too long, and too important to be left to chance.

We built this wiki because Armenians have been a fundamental component of the Egyptian mosaic, and this component deserves to be put in the spotlight.

Komitas, the musician, priest and the man who preserved Armenian folk music from getting lost, and hugely inspired us to build this wiki, and preserve another part of the Armenian culture, we are honoring his work, his legacy and his suffering along with the 1.5 million Armenians during the Armenian genocide.

Abu Al-Najm Badruldeen Al-Jamali, the Armenian-Egyptian military leader who saved Egypt from one of its worst famines in the 11th century, revamped the city of Cairo, restored order in the army and the government and build some of the most important monuments in Old Cairo quarters.

And most importantly, this wiki is dedicated to every Armenian who made Egypt their home — who arrived with little and built everything; who spoke Arabic in the streets and Armenian in the church; who raised children who called themselves Egyptian without forgetting they were Armenian.